Judge Rules for Cosby’s Wife

Camille Cosby will not have to sit for a deposition Wednesday in a lawsuit filed against her husband, the entertainer Bill Cosby, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled Tuesday, as he granted Mrs. Cosby’s request to postpone any deposition until her lawyers have a chance to appeal.

Magistrate Judge David H. Hennessy had ruled last week that Mrs. Cosby must sit for the deposition despite her opposition. She was scheduled to meet on Wednesday with lawyers for seven women who say Mr. Cosby defamed them when his team characterized their accounts of sexual assault as fabrications.

But Judge Hennessy granted Mrs. Cosby’s motion for a stay to allow her lawyers to appeal his decision.

Both sides will have to wait for the United States District Court judge, Mark G. Mastroianni, the senior judge overseeing the case, to rule on the appeal.

A lawyer for Mr. Cosby, Monique Pressley, praised the decision. A lawyer for the seven women, Joseph Cammarata, said: “The day of reckoning will come. We expect that we ultimately will be able to take Mrs. Cosby’s deposition.”

Lawyers for Mrs. Cosby had tried to prevent the deposition, putting forward a variety of arguments, including that she was not a party to the litigation against Mr. Cosby and has no information the opposing lawyers could not obtain from her husband. And, her lawyers had argued, that even though the defamation case is in federal court, her testimony could still be banned under the state’s spousal disqualification laws. But the judge dismissed those arguments.

Mr. Cosby, who was criminally charged last week in Pennsylvania in a case involving a different woman, will also be deposed in the Massachusetts civil suit, possibly as early as next month. Mr. Cosby has long denied all of the allegations against him.